An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro is clean­ing house, start­ing with the fir­ing of 17 po­lice of­fi­cers.

The an­nounce­ment by Gue­var­ro that the ap­point­ments of 17 of­fi­cers had been re­voked re­port­ed­ly left the law en­force­ment com­mu­ni­ty reel­ing yes­ter­day.

Ac­knowl­edg­ing the sur­prise the fir­ings would have gen­er­at­ed among the work­force and the pub­lic, Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (DCP) in charge of Ad­min­is­tra­tion, Ju­nior Ben­jamin, said they are part of the thrust to pro­vide an im­proved T&T Po­lice Ser­vice.

He said, “This forms part of the ze­ro-tol­er­ance ap­proach by the TTPS in deal­ing with mat­ters of in­dis­ci­pline and cor­rup­tion. It is one of the things we are do­ing to en­sure the stan­dard of the TTPS re­mains above what is ex­pect­ed, so that the pub­lic can see a more im­proved po­lice ser­vice.”

He re­mind­ed all of­fi­cers, “You are not above the law.

“You took an oath to op­er­ate at all times with fair­ness and im­par­tial­i­ty. That is what the pub­lic ex­pects from us.”

The shock­ing and un­prece­dent­ed move, which was con­firmed via a re­lease post­ed to the TTPS’s Face­book page, did not re­veal the rea­sons be­hind the re­vo­ca­tions, of­fi­cers’ ranks or which di­vi­sions and/or units they were at­tached to.

The re­lease read, “This no­tice is is­sued for pub­lic in­for­ma­tion and record in ac­cor­dance with the ad­min­is­tra­tive di­rec­tions of the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice.”

Ac­cord­ing to one of­fi­cer yes­ter­day, the re­vo­ca­tion meant the 17 had im­me­di­ate­ly ceased to be po­lice of­fi­cers, and would now re­vert to be­ing civil­ians.

“What­ev­er they did had to be re­al­ly, re­al­ly bad,” the of­fi­cer in­di­cat­ed.

News of the fir­ings came hours af­ter the TTPS is­sued a re­cruit­ment no­tice on so­cial me­dia, invit­ing el­i­gi­ble mem­bers of the pub­lic to ap­ply to join the or­gan­i­sa­tion.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment on the re­vo­ca­tions, for­mer com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith re­called the push-back he re­ceived when he at­tempt­ed to ad­dress the is­sue of serv­ing po­lice of­fi­cers com­ing be­fore the court, charged with a vi­o­lent crimes in­clud­ing mur­der, rape, and kid­nap­ping.

Say­ing those of­fi­cers they should have been fired im­me­di­ate­ly then, he re­vealed, “The Po­lice Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion fought me down tremen­dous­ly be­cause they still said it was in­no­cent un­til proven guilty.”

Grif­fith said he had ar­gued then that of­fi­cers who were found in­no­cent could be re­in­stat­ed and com­pen­sat­ed.

This sit­u­a­tion, he ac­ced­ed, “could be some­thing to­tal­ly dif­fer­ent.”

He clar­i­fied, “This is not about of­fi­cers be­ing charged.”

Throw­ing his sup­port be­hind Gue­var­ro, he said, “I agree with the com­mis­sion­er. It is to­tal­ly un­ac­cept­able where you have hun­dreds of po­lice of­fi­cers sus­pend­ed in­def­i­nite­ly, get­ting paid for it, work­ing else­where, so it looks as if you are ben­e­fit­ting from do­ing the wrong thing and it is cost­ing the tax­pay­ers tens up­on tens of mil­lions of dol­lars an­nu­al­ly and you are not get­ting val­ue for mon­ey.”

He said the move could save the tax­pay­ers “lots of mon­ey” and urged the pub­lic not to spec­u­late in the ab­sence of fur­ther facts.

Ef­forts to reach Gue­var­ro, for­mer CoP Mc Don­ald Ja­cob, and TTPS So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion (TTPSS­WA) ASP Ish­mael Pitt pres­i­dent were un­suc­cess­ful.

BOX

Fired of­fi­cers

1. Tama­ra Boyce

2. Vi­jay Singh

3. El­liot Chin

4. Joanne Jadoo

5. Owen Hem-Lee

6. Ji­lann Hold­er

7. Kizzy Thomas

8. Kar­lon Mur­ray

9. Christo­pher Gob­in

10. Michael Al­cala

11. Car­los Thorne

12. De­von Bas­ant

13. Akiel Smith

14. Desron Dil­lon

15. Shaun Reid

16. Joff Awong

17. Daryl Baksh